Notes: Advantage, Herd -- MU still in 2-a-days

HUNTINGTON - As Marshall worked out for the 16th time Monday, the format changed a bit, becoming a hybrid between preseason camp and game week.

That's understandable, when you look at the calendar. The season opener at West Virginia was just 12 days away, so the scout-team activities commenced. But school has yet to start at Marshall, so the team can still have two-practice days.

In fact, the Thundering Herd works out twice today and is scheduled to go twice Thursday. Coach Doc Holliday sees that as an advantage, as WVU players started classes Monday.

"This time last year, we were in school," Holliday said. "This time last year, we were off Monday. The good thing is we have no limitations on the number of hours we can prepare. It's an advantage from that standpoint that we can keep the kids and meet with them. It's good for a young team."

Monday's workout was shorter than those of the previous two weeks, but only in terms of elapsed time.

"One reason practice was shorter was we had 'X' number of plays to run," Holliday said. "We wanted to speed things up with the tempo. We got the same number of plays in; we just did them quicker.

"That's one thing we felt Saturday [in the scrimmage] we didn't do a good job of, and we wanted to improve that."

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They haven't come in the numbers seen back in the Chad Pennington/Byron Leftwich era, but NFL scouts have been a common sight this month. Representatives of the Saints, Cowboys and Titans were watching from the sidelines Monday.

Receiver Aaron Dobson is the obvious target of interest, but everybody gets a chance to draw a scout's attention. Seeing former teammates Vinny Curry, Omar Brown and Mario Harvey fighting hard in NFL camps gives younger Herd players that much more incentive.

"They've been here every day, for the most part," Holliday said. "That's a compliment to the program and to the players we have."